Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Tokyo Hotaru Festival 2012

"If Sumida River is filled with fireflies..."

Tokyo Hotaru Festival

Mention Asakusa and this
famous landmark of Kaminarimon of Sensoji Temple will pop
out.

That
was the main idea behind the event; to create a scene that resembles
hundreds of thousands of fireflies flying along Sumida River in Tokyo.
They call this event, Tokyo Hotaru Festival 2012. 'Hotaru' by the way, refers to firefly
in Japanese. However, there are no fireflies found naturally in Sumida
River. Neither would it be possible to capture that huge amount of
fireflies from elsewhere and release them at Sumida River.

The creative Japanese had another idea - by using LED bulbs to replace the fireflies and lid up a section of the river.

Sumida River is beautifully lighten up with blue LED
floating along the river.

I
only found out about this event at the very last minute. In fact, it was
running when I got a phone call from Kai Cung who told me to look out
for the Tokyo Sky Tree as they were lighting up the tower that night. It
is relatively near from my place to see the tower; I just need to take
about a ten-minute walk and the tower will be visible to me.

Kai
Cung also told me to Google for Tokyo Hotaru in the Internet and that
was what I did right immediately. Realised that the event is definitely
something not to be missed, I took a quick shower, grabbed my camera and
the rest of the gear and threw everything into my camera backpack, and
took a short train ride to Asakusa (only fifteen minutes away from my
place) to catch the magnificent show along Sumida River.

Tokyo Sky Tree on the right and Sumida River.

It certainly makes Sumida River looks like it is
filled with hundreds of thousands of fireflies.

The two most famous landmark
by Sumida River - Tokyo Sky Tree and Asahi Beer building.

The
event was gonna end at nine and it was already half past eight when I
arrived. I wasted no time and quickly got into action. Perhaps I could
say it was a blessing in disguise that I arrived late, because I saw
visitors had begun to leave the place and it was not as crowded as I
expected. That is a good news because I had more chances to look for
better angles for my photos.

Just
a brief info about this event, Tokyo Hotaru Festival 2012 is part of
the two-day festival that takes place in the Sumida River basin with the
majestic Tokyo Sky Tree in the background. With the slogan "To bring
the proud and beautiful Tokyo to the world", the event attempts to
reincarnate the breathtaking Tokyo wrapped in water and green corridor,
while enjoying the Sumida River area and its environment.

Closeup shot of the 'inori boshi'.

The LED are retrieved at the end of the event.

This event is also part of
the current effort made to promote 'Sumida River Renaissance', a modern
effort to reincarnate the hustle and bustle of the Sumida River in the
Edo period.

For this purpose, an approximately 100,000 of solar-powered LED bulbs, called 'Inori boshi'
(いのり星) are released into the river. It is indeed a grand light art
installation, creating a breathtaking scene under the bright moonlight
along Sumida River. At the same time, the Tokyo Sky Tree, due to be
officially open to public later this month, was illuminated by fantastic
white and blue LED lights throughout the festival.

The 'inori boshi' is
a specially designed spherical LED around the size of a tennis ball,
equipped with rechargeable battery, solar panel and LED. When it makes
contact with water, it will light up automatically. As it uses solar
panel as its electricity source, the electricity usage during the event
is zero. The battery, solar panel and LED, by the way, are sponsored by
Panasonic.

Floating LED before they
are recollected. Their arrangement reminds of of the atomic structure in
chemistry lesson.

I'm
not sure if these LED are for sale, but I should have brought back one
of them as a souvenir. Never mind, I guess I'll try to do that next year *evil grin*